Do the Work

There are so many things that vie for our attention, and it’s become increasingly easy to spend our time staying busy and preoccupied, yet do so at the expense of doing meaningful work. Not just doing our “job,” but doing things that create value and fulfill our calling.

Perhaps it’s the work of serving customers, or creating systems, or managing a team. Perhaps it’s the work of writing software, or crafting articles, or launching a business. Perhaps it’s the work of being a parent, or spouse, or neighbor, or friend.

Regardless of what it is, we all have work to do (which may or may not coincide with our job description), and to do it well requires an investment of time and focus–not just going through the motions, but investing ourselves wholly into the work at hand.

Unfortunately, we can stay busy all day responding to email, checking social media, running to meetings, tracking trending news or topics, or staying preoccupied on frivolous tasks of little importance. Not that some of these things don’t have a place, or aren’t important at times, but often they end up being ways of staying busy, and do little to help us invest in those things that really matter.

Yes, we can get good at staying busy. But staying busy is not the same as doing something that matters. It’s easy to stay busy; it can be hard to do the work we need to do. Do the work.